Did you purchase CS4 Web Premium or CS4 Master Collection on or after September 15, 2009? Then get your free copy of Flex Builder 3 Standard today!

Check out https://freeriatools.adobe.com/cs for more info.

I would also like to remind you that Flex Builder 3 is also/still free for education and unemployed developers. Additionally ColdFusion is also free for education.

When I showed the first versions of the MAX widget to a few colleagues, most were very surprised to hear that this was all built with the Flex 3 framework and that no Flash Catalyst or Flash CS4 was involved in this.

“Including the animations?“, was a question I got a lot. And yes… Even the animations are “programmed” using the Flex framework. And you know what… It’s really not as hard as it sounds. The Flex framework actually has a bunch of effects built in and they are really easy to use.

In this case, I used 2 move effects and specified a “Back.easeOut” easingFunction. This easing function creates that bouncing effect that you see in the widget.

<mx:Move id="moveIn" yFrom="400" duration="350" easingFunction="Back.easeOut"/>
<mx:Move id="moveOut" yTo="400" duration="250" easingFunction="Back.easeIn"/>

You can use these types of effects in a number of different ways but the easiest way (I think) is to specify the showEffect and hideEffect on a component.

<mx:Canvas id="page1_back" showEffect="moveIn" hideEffect="moveOut" width="400" height="400"/>

When you set the visible property to false, the hideEffect will trigger and the showEffect gets triggered when you set the visible property to true. I’m sure you can already see how I built this ;-)

In the widget, you see 6 different pieces of graphics slide in to place over time. To do that, I created a timer that triggers my setup function over time.

var setupTimer:Timer = new Timer(150, 3);
setupTimer.addEventListener("timer", doSetupPage1);
setupTimer.start();

This timer will trigger the doSetupPage1 function 3 times with 150 milliseconds in between each call. All my doSetupPage1 function does, is set the visible property to true on the different pieces of graphics I want to show.

private function doSetupPage1(event:TimerEvent):void
{
    switch (event.target.currentCount)
    {
        case 1:
            page1_back.visible = true;
            break;
        case 2:
            page1_middle.visible = true;
            break
        case 3:
            page1_front.visible = true;
            break;
    }
}

To hide them, I’m actually doing exactly the same thing. Instead of setting the visible property to true, I set it to false and when all pieces of artwork are hidden, I trigger the function that reveals the next page.

[flash medium=5 w=400 h=400 mode=1]

To get you started, I created this little Flex project that demonstrates this approach. Now I’m not saying that this is best practice or not but I think it’s just an easy way to create sexy transitions with Flex 3.

Download the source.

I have two full conference tickets for Flash On The Beach in Brighton (worth £359 each), one copy of Flex Builder 3 Professional, a bunch of Flex books, t-shirts and other goodies and I’m giving it all away!

How do you win? Easy! Take out your crystal ball and take a look in to the future of the Flash Platform. Where do you see the Flash Platform 5, 10 or 20 years from now? What would you add or change to the Flash Platform?

Be creative! You can use both the power of words and the power of pixels. If you want to create mockup of Flash CS10 or Flash Builder 10, then please do so. If you are better with words, feel free to type away. Leave a comment with a link to your image or just post your thoughts. Please enter your real name and email address.

Winners will be picked based on creativity, originality and/or interesting ideas. Winners will be announced on Monday, August 17th 2009 on this blog. Deadline: Sunday, August 16th, 2009 00:00GMT

Looking forward to hear your thoughts and ideas!

When we named project “Thermo” Flash Catalyst, everyone started speculating about where we were going with this. Soon after, rumours about renaming Flex Builder started to float around in the community and today is that day… The next version of Flex Builder will be named Flash Builder 4. And I think it makes total sense. This change will provide better naming consistency for the Flash family of tools and position Flash Builder as the development tool for the Flash Platform. Not convinced? Let me try to persuade you.

When you build applications in Flex Builder, you’re building them with the open source Flex Framework and/or ActionScript. The applications then get compiled in to a SWF-file that runs in the Flash Player. When talking to customers, I regularly got asked if you needed “Flex Player” installed to run an application and that is exactly the type of confusion that we want to solve. By renaming Flex Builder to Flash Builder, there is no doubt what you are going to build using this product. You’re going to build an application that will run on the ubiquitous and trusted Flash Player.

While we are renaming the next version of Flex Builder to Flash Builder 4, it will still be the same Eclipse-based IDE with lots of exciting new features. We are not renaming the open source Flex Framework or the free Flex SDK. Also, if you’ve been calling yourself a Flex developer, there’s no need to go and print new business cards. You will still be building applications with the Flex Framework, so no change there. We will also continue to promote the use of the Flex Framework and Flex development in general.

I know all of you are really excited about the upcoming releases of Flash Builder and Flash Catalyst and while we haven’t announced any release dates yet, I can tell you that we will be releasing public beta versions of both products this summer. So if you haven’t planned your summer vacation yet, you may want to hold off on that and plan on playing with Flash Catalyst beta and Flash Builder 4 beta during the summer. That’s what I’m going to do ;-)

Also, you may want to check with your local Adobe User Group. We are doing a pre-release tour through 119 different locations in June. So if you want to find out more about what we are doing with the upcoming beta releases of Flash Catalyst and Flash Builder, this would be a great place to start.

If you have any questions or comments about this upcoming name change, feel free to leave a note below.

Update: Lee Brimelow just published an FAQ about the rebranding.

Flash on!

A few weeks ago, most of us on the Platform Evangelism team reached out to the developer community, offering free Adobe Flex Builder 3 licenses to unemployed developers so they can learn a new skill and raise their profile. Needless to say that we were swamped with email requests. Today, this is now a more formal offering, with information and access to the program available at https://freeriatools.adobe.com/learnflex/

To get you up and running with Flex in no time, Safari Books Online is offering a free 60-day subscription to a collection of books on Flex 3 and related RIA development technologies.

More information on https://freeriatools.adobe.com/learnflex/